MAP21: Pitfalls (Doom 64)

MAP21: Pitfalls is the twenty-first level of Doom 64, designed by Tim Heydelaar. This is one of the darker levels of the game, with the eerie music track "Perfect Hate" characterized by deep howling, high-pitched orchestral music, and insect buzzing and a dark, scary atmosphere.

Essentials
You begin in a square room with the backs of inactive shotgunners turned towards you. Take them all out, then open every door you can and take out the other shotgunners and Hell knight lying in wait. Afterward, the yellow skull key will appear on top of the small pedestal in the middle. Collect it and open the yellow door, killing the two Hell knights in your way. Then enter the yellow door to trigger stairs that lower into the next part of the map. These stairs will immediately retract once you cross them.

Then you find yourself in a vast, dark cavern with a massive radiation pit at the base of the cliffs below. This cavern is infested with cacodemons, more shotgunners and Hell knights, and an arachnotron stationed in a high alcove. Kill as many of them as you can for now, then head for a switch located across the pit in a niche cut into the cliff face. You will have to strafe jump to reach it, and after pressing it, you will have to jump down into the radiation pit and quickly get to one of the teleporters down there before taking too much damage, but there are a couple of radiation shields down there for protection. The teleporter will take you back to the main floor of the cavern. The switch you activated causes the far section of the main floor to break into sections that stagger themselves to different heights, making you have to execute strafe jumping strategically to cross over them to reach the teleporter at the far end of the section, and it also triggers the appearance of more shotgunners and imps, and a baron in a large niche where you can find some rocket ammo. Kill every last one of them, then kill the Hell knight blocking the teleporter before entering it.

Next, you're inside the start of a large network of dark hallways lined with blue stone walls. These hallways have many shotgunners and a few Hell knights around every corner. Take them all out, then head for the hall section that has two doors that are staggered across from each other. Enter the farther door first, kill the Hell knight and shotgunners, then collect the computer area map and activate the switch. This lowers a wall that unleashes another Hell knight and a pair of shotgunners at you, and it also raises a narrow piece of floor in the room staggered across the hall, that allows you to cross the small radiation pit within and activate the switch. However, there is a cacodemon and shotgunner in there as well to kill.

Activating the switch in the small radiation pit room drops a wall that conceals a large shrine chamber, guarded by a baron. Take him out, then proceed into the chamber. As you approach the blue skull key at the back, you will trigger the appearance of five more barons who attempt to surround you. This puts you in a very dangerous predicament, so use your Unmaker or BFG if you can. Then enter the service hall that's to the left of the entrance of the shrine. This hall will take you to the ledge at the very back which will allow you to strafe jump to collect the energy cells and blue skull key. There is another, smaller service hall to the right which has an invulnerability sphere. Collecting the blue skull key triggers the appearance of yet more barons down the path back to the teleporter from which you came. Invulnerability will make dealing with them easier, however it wears off after 30 seconds, making you have to act fast. Afterward, go into the blue door and kill one more baron and a shotgunner and activate the switch. Then head back through the teleporter.

Back in the caverns, kill yet another baron in between the stones, then make your way past the staggered floor, killing the Hell knights in your way as you traverse the now accessible path that leads around the far end high above the radiation pit. Along the way, a stone column will drop, revealing a soulsphere. Collect it, and continue on, killing all the Hell knights and cacodemon that stand between you and the switch at the end of the path, which permanently lowers the stairs leading back to the beginning of the map. As you make your way back around, jump for the red key that reveals itself on a column sticking above the radiation pit, and then kill the cacodemons that appear afterward. As you make your way back to the map beginning, beware that more barons have also appeared to try to stop you.

After killing the barons and going back into the room you started the map in, now that you have the red skull key, you can lower the red columns that block a switch which lowers a yellow barrier with a red stripe in the dark blue hallway complex. Head back to the teleporter and enter. Back in the hallway complex, a Hell knight waits to greet you. Take him out, then head through the hall the aforementioned barrier was blocking. This takes you into the final room of the map where the last two Hell knights and barons guard the exit drop zone. Take them out, then leap into the drop to finish the map.

Official

 * 1) In the lava pit there should be a couple of radiation suits and you can find a rock shaped as an arrow pointing to a narrow corridor leading to an elevator.  Take this elevator up to collect an energy cell, a box of rockets and a rocket launcher. (sector 87)
 * 2) Immediately after teleporting to the second, maze-like section of the map, traveling left will bring you to a hallway with two short dead-end hallways.  In the middle of this hallway the southeastern wall has a different texture, and can be lowered to reveal rockets, health and a shotgun guy. (sector 72)
 * 3) In the maze-like second section of the map is yet another secret in the vicinity near secret #2.  To access this secret, take the hallway between secret #2 and the blue-key door until you get to a set of blocks with faces on both sides.  One of these faces will have its eyes lit up red.  Shoot this face and make your way back up the hallway and a wall with a decoration will have lowered revealing a megaarmor. (sector 235)

Non-official

 * At the western set of four torches/pillars, there will be the rock staircase that will need to have been opened to progress through the level. Follow these stairs up and continue to follow or hug the wall on your left-hand side till you find yourself on a narrow ledge.  Run forward off this ledge to an opening to a drop-off that will have some items to collect.  You can safely leave this spot by jumping off directly onto a teleporter below in the lava pit.

Things
This level contains the following numbers of things per skill level: